Monthly Archives: July 2017

Mark Levin is a rabid right wing radio talk show host. Because I at least scan about any title with the word progressivism in it, I viewed his latest book Rediscovering Americanism: and the Tyranny of Progressivism and was pleasantly…

From Ted Van Dyk at The Wall Street Journal, The Democrats’ Biggest Problem Is Cultural: The Democratic voter exodus began in 1968 when millions of traditional blue-collar and middle-income voters moved to Republican Richard Nixon or third-party candidate George Wallace,…

by Henry Oliner The reason ideology is relevant in the health care debate is that at the core of the difficulty is the separation of pragmatic solutions from sound ideological support. Our health care problem is an accumulation of short…

Another gem from Kevin Williamson, A National State of Non-Emergency in National Review: The recently proffered Republican health-care bill instantiates much of what is wrong with our politics: The bill was constructed through an extraordinary process in which there were no hearings,…

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in The Twenty First Century, has spawned a cottage industry of dissent. Piketty uses masses of data to illuminate a growth in inequality, that he surmises is an inevitable result of capitalism and can only be resolved…

from David French at National Review, Post-Christian America: Gullible, Intolerant, and Superstitious Although I’ve heard some variation on this argument countless times, as I grew older I noticed something odd. Many of the best-educated and least-religious people I knew weren’t…

from Glenn Harland Reynolds Instapundit, one of my favorite daily reads: As Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged: “Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. You’d better get it…

from Sarah Hoyt, Poor Darlings: Most of all you’re privileged because you can work and create and all the spoiled brats can do is take over an institution or an industry, gut it, then wear the skin demanding respect. In the…

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in The Twenty First Century, has spawned a cottage industry of dissent. Piketty uses masses of data to illuminate a growth in inequality, that he surmises is an inevitable result of capitalism and can only be resolved…

The health insurance controversy is the pragmatic apex of sharply conflicting ideologies and both will not easily coexist. It will take more than the repeal of Obamacare to fix. Obamacare was just a bad response to a history of bad policies. Trying a different bad response will not fix the problem either.

from Sarah Hoyt, Poor Darlings: So the bright men and women who embraced Marxism for all things, particularly as a cure-all to the “greed” and “hatred” that had led to world war one were destined to be disappointed. The working class…

from Kevin Williamson at National Review, Apartment Fires and Health Insurance The problem for health insurance is the same as the problem for condominium sprinklers: The benefits are desirable, but they are not free, and many people, given a choice,…

This is the consequence of political consensus ruling over scientific inquiry. Scientific objectivity is thwarted by intellectual McCarthyism. Dissent is demonized, careers are destroyed. It is more like religious fanaticism than science. Yet they have been able to brand the right with the pejorative of being anti-science. Moral superiority justifies illiberalism. Obvious conflicts of interests are ignored.

from Sarah Hoyt, Poor Darlings: Back in the early twentieth century, when “scientific” everything was shiny and chrome, they were “scientific” governance. All that bs about semantics, and psychology as a hard science you find in early Heinlein books? Yep, that…

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in The Twenty First Century, has spawned a cottage industry of dissent. Piketty uses masses of data to illuminate a growth in inequality, that he surmises is an inevitable result of capitalism and can only be resolved…

from The Georgia Public Policy Foundation Friday Facts 7/7/17 Academia gone rogue: In a whistleblower lawsuit, Duke University admitted its in-house investigators believe a former lab tech falsified or fabricated data that went into 29 medical research reports over eight years. Duke…

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in The Twenty First Century, has spawned a cottage industry of dissent. Piketty uses masses of data to illuminate a growth in inequality, that he surmises is an inevitable result of capitalism and can only be resolved…

from Thomas Donlan at Barron’s, What Went Wrong in Kansas Americans want government like they want services generally: “faster, better, and cheaper.” But economists know there’s a problem: The optimistic ones say, “Pick any two”; the pessimists say, “Choose one.”…

from Sarah Hoyt, Poor Darlings: It’s not what they think they’re doing. Like deluded missionaries for a doomsday cult, they think they’re fighting for paradise. Of which more later, and which is why you should pity them. But it is…

from The Georgia Public Policy Foundation Friday Facts 7/7/17 “People of solid character don’t spend money they don’t have year after year. They don’t send the bill to generations they don’t even know yet. That is not just bad economics, it is…